Thursday, July 11, 2013

Happy 114th Birthday, E. B. White!

As writers striving
to craft brilliant prose, the magic of our words on paper then goes through the
edit process. What is the one book in every writer's library?

Yup, the standard
style manual for writing, "The Elements of Style", a mainstay of
high-school and college English courses in the U.S. Quick, do you remember the
authors? The title of the blog post is a big hint. Yes, E.B. White with his
former professor, William Strunk Jr.. Strunk had privately printed the book,
which had gone out of print. White did a revision of the original, adding and
expanding chapters and content. The book is still considered the staple for any
author's library. A favorite principle in the book states; "Vigorous writing
is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no
unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no
unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary part." Personally, I salute
a now retired teacher, Suzanne Wexler for guiding every one of her students to
become writers by using this book. She made sure they knew E. B. White was the
same author of their favorite children's chapter books

In 1927, White
joined The New Yorker as a staffer. White, along with another great writer,
James Thurber, shaped the magazine’s tone and direction. The New Yorker was at
it's toddler stage having been founded in 1925. E. B. White was an active
contributory of essays, poems and other articles during the years of The Great Depression
and the recovery years.

E. B. wrote,
"A farm is a peculiar problem for a man who likes animals, because the
fate of most livestock is that they are murdered by their benefactors."
Particularly fond of his pigs, he felt guilty about turning them into ham and
bacon. Walking one day through his orchard, he got an idea for a story about
how a pig's life could be saved. He said, "I had been watching a large
spider in the back-house, and what with one thing and another, the idea came to
me."Writing to his
editor he penned, "My next book is in sight. I look at it every day. I
keep it in a carton as you would a kitten." As many know, this idea
blossomed into his second book, "Charlotte's Web."

All three books
have sold millions and have been made into successful films. Even now, they are
still required reading for school children, thankfully. These books are true
gems because they explore more adult themes of loyalty, tolerance, and courage.

E. B. White, wrote,
"All I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love
the world". Well said, Mr. White and Happy 114th Birthday, thank you for
your legacy!

Track the most recent updates

Enter your email address to receive the latest site updates

Blog posts appearing on Suite T are copyrighted and are the exclusive property of the contributing author in cooperation with Southern Writers Magazine. No material may be reposted or republished without the author's written consent. Please report violations to staff@southernwritersmag.com

Some browsers (especially AOL and older versions of IE), don't play nice with Disqus. For best results, Blogger recommends Firefox, IE 8-10, Safari and Google Chrome when commenting.